In recent years, carrier-class Ethernet has emerged as a significant technology with respect to transport of traffic over Metro Area Networks (MANs). For example, in the United States, the demand for Ethernet services is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 20%. Such growth and increasing demand are partly driven by the need for higher bandwidth for site-to-site and data center connectivity, scalability, performance, and security.
Carrier-class Ethernet networks have been developed to leverage Ethernet technology to service provider networks that may include a number of individual operator networks. Carrier-class Ethernet networks include Ethernet virtual connections (EVCs) established between endpoints on the network. Such EVCs make a network that includes multiple sub-networks appear as a single network to customer devices.
Modern communications networks use a layered network model referred to as the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model to define various functions within the network architecture in terms of abstraction layers. Carrier-class Ethernet networks rely on an Ethernet transport mechanism to perform data transmission for higher level services through the network.